Okay, I don’t know about you and your saving plans, but I have to say, I sucked at mine.

Sure, there are saving plans from banks and even online banking options that can ‘lock’ your money before you can even spend it. But I’m not a person who generally likes these kinds of commitments.

So, I have a few habits that have attributed to my money management  and bank savings and I’m happy to share them below and perhaps you will find them useful to you!

#1 – Avoid breaking large notes

Image from Google search

If you already have a habit of withdrawing money at the beginning of every week, you are bound to have at least one $50 note in your wallet every start of the week. Once you’ve psycho-ed yourself to avoid breaking that large note, you might realise that you’re also stopping yourself from spending unnecessary items like that set of cute earrings at $10 or even that cup of Starbucks drink. You’d be surprised on how much you can save through this habit.

#2 – Saving coins

Image Credits to TaxCredits.net

I can’t remember the number of occasions I had to dig my entire bag for coins to suffice my bus trip back home. Coins are my financial life saver (especially when my ez-link card runs low on credit). I’m pretty sure a number of you came across this post on social media where a guy saved S$6,000 in $1 coins. I think this goes to show that a little effort a day contributes to a large impact – in this case, large savings.

#3 – Setting Cashless payment and Credit card limits

With all the advertising on contactless payments, you must think that one’s shopping experience just got so much better, right? Indeed, it’s a lot handier to simply use a card or phone to ‘tap-n-go’, but this also less assuring to not see how much money you have left in your possession. I found it more difficult for me to save because I’m such a sucker for convenience. So what to do? Set your credit limit to comfortable figure. And by comfortable, I don’t mean a comfortable spending figure. Set it to a figure that you know you can afford to pay off at the end of the month. I like to use an estimate base as a quarter of my receiving pay. Example:

Salary that enters my bank every 30th of the month: $1,000
Credit limit on contactless modes: $250
End of 1st month contactless payment bill: $200 (payment due 29th of 2nd month)

When you get more used your expenditures, then you can adjust your limits accordingly.

#4 – Determining your spending habits

One of my major spending habit is buying snacks below S$5. From Egg tarts to Subway Cookies to that S$1.50 of Bubble tea conveniently available next to the bus stop – food is most definitely my weakness. I was unnecessarily indulging in them at least 4 times a week. Let’s do a little mathematics.

Taking an average of $3.50 for every snacking item I purchase and the above frequency of 3 times a week, we have:
$3.50 x 4 = $14 a week
$14 x 4 weeks = $36 a month

That, folks, is on top on my daily meals that can range from $9 to $30 depending on what I have going on that day. That amount of expenditure can contribute to my other goals such as my travel or education savings.

Knowing what causes your money bank decrease is the first step to working on how to make it increase.
Anywho, I hope these efforts works for you as well as they have worked for me. Do share with us if you have more money managing/saving tips!

Cheerios,
Crys! (IG@crystalfishball)
Mitsueki’s Blog Writer

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